


most days we aren’t even sure if we are alive

by unluckyloki



Series: death is only the end if you assume the story is about you [3]
Category: DCU, Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Self-Worth Issues, Space Ships, Tim deals with his one-sided feelings by violently repressing them, character dealing with one-sided feelings, dark|depressive thoughts, guess who's actually alive, like literal ships with masts and sails but in space, self-sacrifice aftermath, treasure planet inspired, weird alien science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-10 21:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19912423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyloki/pseuds/unluckyloki
Summary: Tim takes a deep breath, balls his shaking hands into fists and takes a step into the void.





	most days we aren’t even sure if we are alive

**Author's Note:**

> oh look, guess who's not dead XD
> 
> subscribe to the series, more's coming!

****The Dark turns out to be a big black void that appears at the far end of the sacrifice chamber.

It’s then, when he’s facing the humming throbbing tear in the fabric of reality itself, Tim thinks for the first time that he doesn’t want to die.

That he’s scared, terrified.

But it’s either him or Conner, so the choice is really simple.

Tim takes a deep breath, balls his shaking hands into fists and takes a step into the void.

The dark matter around him closes, presses onto him, but does not hurt.

 _It’s a nice death_ , Tim thinks.

After all of the deaths in the family, it’s finally his time to die and if it’s this nice and swift, he’d be one of the luckiest.

The darkness around him presses on him, like the waves of rushing water. It’s not unpleasant – instead, Tim finds the hold on him grounding, like Kon’s TTK could be sometimes, when he would wrap it around Tim to make sure not to lose him while flying with him – _always the handclasp, never any other way because Kon wouldn't want to be seen like that with_ a guy _, right?_

_This is not the time to b_ _e petty,_ _he’s gonna die in like a second!_

Everything around him is pitch-black. When he takes a breath, something slimy like an overripe banana slides down his throat, and he gasps, but that’s exactly what he gets instead of air and he chokes.

Tim feels like he’s drifting down, down, down, even though he doesn’t even know where up or down are. His traitorous body is fighting to stay alive, even when he knows that there’s no air left to breath. His body does seem to be against him, because his mouth opens on it’s own and he breathes in all that slimy something, and feels it slide down to his lungs.

 _This is not a very heroic death_ , Tim manages to think before he is hauled up and there’s a lot of blindingly bright light.

He gasps without meaning to and finds out that he can breath, actually, normally breath and his body is so exited over the prospect of normal air that he nearly hyperventilates.

Someone is holding his hair and he panics, because he doesn’t really like people touching him without asking first, and also if he doesn’t see them – _especially_ if he doesn’t see them.

“There, there,” someone says behind him in a well-meaning voice and Tim jerks back, knocking into that someone.

“Okay, I am gonna get my hand off your face, do not panic,” the same voice says and Tim belatedly understands that there was a reason he couldn't see.

As soon as his vision is clear, a glass with some pinkish liquid gets thrust into his hands.

Tim finds himself sitting on the floor, a nice and steady wooden floor that he is immensely grateful to, because it’s keeping him from falling. He turns around to look at the person that’s been holding him and finds himself in front of a small crowd, all of them whispering to each other and pointing at him.

 _I_ _t_ _’s no_ _t_ _Var,_ the crowd steers. _It’s a child_ , he hears someone whisper in shock.

His head spins even more. He feels light-headed.

“Why have you been sacrificed? Are you a criminal?” the voice that was well-meaning changes into a dangerous one.

The person who’s been speaking to him has red hair, the burgundy kind, the figure slender and looks kinda feminine. No, wait, Tim can see that this person’s skin is a light, pastel violet, just like the Counselor’s was. Was, is. That’s a Var person, maybe their hair is just dyed? The people of Var planet have only one gender, so he shouldn’t have thought that. He shouldn’t have thought at all because his head is throbbing with the mother of all headaches and wasn’t the afterlife supposed to be pain-free? This is not what was promised to him, Tim wants his money back.

Wait, there was a question he was supposed to be answering.

“No,” Tim explains through his muddled thoughts. “We crash landed and they were gonna execute Kon for something stupid and I couldn't let him die!”

There’s more shuffling and whispering, but Tim doesn’t catch any of that. He’s holding his head together with both hands because it’s about to fall apart into at least three pieces.

“Aww, young love,” the same person who’s been talking to him before chuckles. “Okay, get the child into his cabin, let him sleep the jet lag off.”

Tim is being lifted and carried somewhere, but he does not care anymore, because he promptly drifts off as soon as he is put on a soft and comfy flat surface.

***

When Tim wakes up, it takes him quite some time to realize where he is and remember why he is there. He carefully looks around – the room where he slept is small, just enough place for a twin bed with a table and a chair in the corner. There’s clothes on the chair, folded neatly – a white shirt with puffy sleeves and a pair of brown pants. Tim pulls them on, feeling weird – the clothes look like something out of 18th century on Earth. There’s a pair of boots with fold-over cuff and some shiny buckles that do not help to break the connection he’s making in his head.

Nevertheless, Tim pulls them on and goes to open the door. He goes up the wooden stairs and wonders why the passage seems to rock back and forth, but leaves this question to when he finally finds somebody to ask. He passes a long corridor with a lot of identical doors, but does not meet a soul. It’s only when he gets to another staircase, this time much bigger and broader, when he finally hears some voices. He freezes, debating either he should open the door in the end of the staircase or listen. The decision is made for him, when the door is thrown open by the person with long burgundy hair.

"Oh," they say, looking at Tim. "You're awake! That's great. Let us give you a tour of the ship!"

Before Tim knows it, he is being pulled forward and out of the door, to the deck of what turns out to be a literal ship, with white sails and wooden masts. The ship is huge, it's end is somewhere far away where Tim can't see. It's probably the size of a small city. There's enough people around to populate said city, and Tim sees that a lot of them are Var - but not all of them. There's ones that look more like humans, except they lack an eye or have too many, there's ones that do not look like humans at all, with bodies changing shape every few minutes and then there's a mix of both.

Tim stares, and probably does that for way too long because the person behind him clears their throat a few times in a row to get his attention.

"My name is Jil," they say. "And this is Bo."

Tim turns to see the person who Jil was talking to when he walked up the staircase. He has to look up. And up. And up.

For such an innocent name, Bo turns out to be a huge mountain of muscles, even a head taller than Bruce. Bo also has four arms, which Tim has to confirm by rubbing his eyes and looking again.

"I'm Tim," he says belatedly.

Jil starts moving in an elegant stride, motioning for him to follow.

“Great. So, first – the room you’ve woken up in is your room from now on. The clothes are for you, too, and if you need them tailored to accommodate any part that’s there,” they motion to his crouch “tell us.”

Tim covers himself with his arms self-consciously and flushes. Bo nudges Jil with two elbows.

“What?” Jil hisses. “I don’t know what humans are like, maybe he has a tail?”

“I do _not_ have a tail,” Tim assures, his cheeks still warm.

“Oh, okay.” Jil says, still looking doubtful. “Well, let’s get you to the main deck, there’s the best view!”

Tim is dragged towards the place they indicated and is about to protest, but as soon as they get there and he is able to see the promised view, Tim can’t do anything but gasp.

The ship is sailing smoothly, rocking slightly. There’s no land as far as he can see, nothing but a wast sky from both sides – and it glows with different shades of purple, highlighted by yellow here and there. There’s swirls of color in some places, forming spirals, and clusters of fat yellow stars in the other places. It looks surprisingly like the pics NASA occasionally posts on their Instagram, like something Tim had seen when he, himself, had been to Watchtower.

Wait.

There’s something missing from this ship’s movement, a sound that Tim couldn’t pinpoint before he rushed towards the edge and climbed the handrail to see better.

There’s no water underneath.

There’s no water, but there’s more of the swirls of color and light.

The ship is still moving.

There’s a comet moving fast further underneath it, Tim can see it’s tail leaving a trail.

“We’re in space?” he asks, feeling dumbstruck.

Bo nudges Jil again and they groan.

“Okay, okay,” they say to Bo. “It’s me explaining it all again, geeze, I get it! So, our ship is called the Goddess and yeah, we’re sailing through space, quite literally.”

“But. How are we breathing? Is there some kind of an invisible layer between the ship and the space outside?” Tim asks and immediately reaching out to test his theory.

Tim’s hand just goes past the railing, nothing stopping it.

“No,” Jil sounds amused. “There’s no barrier. We’ve found that the deep space in this galaxy, wherever it is, is breathable for all lifeforms.”

“Are you telling me I’m breathing _space_?” Tim asks, not sure if he wants to stop it or to breath in more deeply. “Wait. What galaxy?”

“Isn’t _that_ a question?” Jil answers bitterly. “We do not know. It’s been mapped out, of course, by the previous generations and added on by the next ones, but we still have no goddamn idea.”

“Previous generations?”

Bo and Jil exchange glances.

“How about we take a long way to the dining rooms and I’ll explain everything?”

The way they take is really long, and Tim is supposed to concentrate on remembering the way around the ship, but instead he feels his head throb in a beginning of a headache.

Jil explains to him that the ship had been here for a very long time, as long as the sacrifices on the Var planet, to be precise. It’s not the same ship as it was in the beginning of it all, of course, it has been changed and rebuilt, but the sentiment still stands. It is unknown how the ship has come to be and who were the first people on it, but it has been traveling through the space for a long time, and each Var year, without fail, it has been returning to the spot where the Dark pushes out the sacrifice of the year. Through the years, not only Var people had boarded the ship, but also some of the other alien races from the planets they passed chose to stay with them. Families have been created out of different species coming together, children born – just like Bo, him having telepathic and emphatic abilities from the various relatives on both sides.

Over a thousand years in human, but still the inhabitants of the ship found nothing to help them find out where they are and how to return to their homeplanet. None of the lands they have visited had ever heard of Var or of the galaxy where the deep vastness of space was not breathable.

Jil lets him look at the map, but, as they predicted, Tim had never seen stars and planets quite like these ones.

“You need to cheer up! We’ve prepared a welcoming feast for you, so it’d get better, I promise!” Jil smiles at him, their sharp canines shining.

Tim goes to the feast, of course, but he’s not enjoying it. After all of the introductions and drinks people around him have had, the main focus shifts to what he thinks must be the local celebrities – a musical band that gathered all of the attention as soon as they started playing. Tim watches as the people around him swirl in dance, their colorful clothes flowing and Tim loses himself in the easy rhythm.

The feeling of being alive has not even settled in him yet, but it’s already being replaced with the feeling of hopelessness.

His friends and family wouldn’t even know to look for him, obviously thinking that he’s dead.

He wonders how the Counselor has broken the news to them. And hopes they didn’t steer too much unneeded drama. Cassie must have been mad pissed he hadn’t told her about his plan. And Bruce can be aggressive sometimes, when something does not go according to his plans. Tim doubts Batman had been anywhere near that Green Lantern’s patroling sector when the sacrifice happened, so that shouldn’t be a problem, but he still worries.

And Kon.

Well.

He’d be angry, too, of course.

His best friend died instead of him.

Best friend, yeah – that’s all he needs to know.

Tim doubts the Counselor would want to spill his secrets. They would most likely just throw the intruders out, relating the important information through Green Lanterns. The team, after all, was the offending party, so the Var people have the right to be angry at them.

The right. Like the right he had to exchange places with Conner.

His feelings for Kon is an integral part of who he is, of course, have been for several years, since he had acknowledged them and fully accepted as something that was there to stay no matter what he’s done.

But it wasn’t comfortable to talk about them so openly to somebody else, to somebody who he didn’t even know.

These feelings were his, were cared for and hidden deep, under lock and key.

He’s told Cassie about a small fraction of it once, in a moment of weakness, when Kon was dead. Tim also suspected that Steph knew. But he’s never actually been forced to say it, to admit how hard it was to live without Kon.

He’s lost in the feeling of it when something warm and fuzzy touches his hand. Tim jerks and nearly falls off the bench he’s sitting at.

There is an animal in front of him, fist-sized, with fuzzy dark-orange fur, black ears and black tail with a white tip. It looks like a cute rat and it makes a very funny rattling sound when it opens it’s mouth.

 _Pikachu_ , Tim’s mind screams at him and he has to bite down a smile that sneaks onto his face involuntary. The orange rat doesn’t look like Pikachu at all, it’s more puffy and fluffy, but Tim can’t stop thinking that.

“That’s Toro,” Jil says, sitting down beside Tim. “He’s Bo’s pet razzmatazz, I do not think they can be found on Earth?”

“No,” Tim says, petting the rat when it sits closer to him, curling it’s tail around itself.

Bo nudges Jil and they look back at him, then turn to Tim.

“Razzamatazz can sense anxiety, that’s why they make great therapy pets,” they add carefully.

By the time Jil says that, Toro had already climbed into Tim’s hand at has made a home there.

“Oh,” is all that Tim says and stops patting the orange rat.

There are more people at the table now, almost all of them – Var.

Toro makes another rattling sound, like as if it’s been annoyed. Tim resumes petting it.

“We know how you feel,” Jil says and it sounds kind. “We’ve all been through the same. You’ve talked to Nil, I presume they’re still the planet’s counselor?”

Tim nods, not sure where this is going.

“Means they’ve been chosen again this year for the position!” Jil smiles proudly and then explains. “They’re my younger sibling. A few years back, they were to be sacrificed. But I knew they could bring more good to Var if they stayed, so I chose to take their place.”

More people at the table nod, sharing their stories – some of them had taken places of their family, friends or romantic partners.

“So, we understand,” Jil repeats. “And you can talk to us anytime. It’s okay to miss your lover-”

“He wasn’t,” Tim shakes his head. “We weren’t anything. It’s just that I-”

The words get stuck in his throat.

Tim’s never said the L-word aloud, not about his feelings for Conner. It’s something he’s feeling weird to even think about, like it’s a deep dark secret he’s supposed to hide.

However, the others understand.

“No one took my place,” a Var with long thick braids says – Tim thinks they said their name was Hin. Their shoulders are broad and they are really pretty. “So, yeah, there’s that.”

They look a bit uncomfortable around all of the people who had taken the sacrifices’ places willingly. Tim understands – he doubts anyone would have taken his place if it was him to be sacrificed. He doesn’t know how to say that he understands, but he doesn’t need to – the Var are semi-telepathic, after all, and Hin can feel it in him. They smile in understanding and it’s a bit sad but still kind.

They stay at the table together for the whole evening, Toro in Tim’s palm. The others tell Tim about themselves, how they lived before the ritual, how they found new meanings and new crafts here, on the ship. Some of them even have found new romantic partners, have started families.

Tim nods and doesn’t tell them that he really wouldn’t ever want anyone else.

A week passes.

Then another.

And another.

Tim gets to know the ship better and does not get lost as often as he did in the beginning. The place is huge and sometimes looks more like a city than a ship.

There’s so many different people here, not only race-vise, but also the older ones and younger ones. There’s even enough children to fill a few kindergartens and schools.

Tim’s the only human around here, and there has been some talk about humans around the universe, especially after Darkseid, so sometimes he attracts a lot of glances. But the people here are kind and no one has ever shown any malicious intentions.

The Var mix up his pronouns quite often, but he doesn’t mind – after all, when his friend Ivy came out as non-binary at school, he sometimes forgot, too.

By the time a month passes, Tim has looked through every map and all of the data collected about the strange galaxy they’re in and has come to the same conclusion as the others – it is a place that is not known in their native universe. The physics laws here make no sense, and the Dark is still as much of a mystery as it was back there.

He doesn’t want to feel hopeless, but the despair grows with each passing day. When he finds himself at the lowest point, he goes to deck zero, the one that’s like the basement to the ship, and watches colorful space fish through glass windows cut out in the floor. Tim spends the whole day there.

He feels the worst of homesickness washing over him, his heart throbbing with it.

That’s when he hears the screams from the upper levels.

It’s a long way up, but Tim runs as fast as he can.

 _P_ _irates, pirates_ – he hears the screams as he’s getting closer to the upper deck.

He runs there, looking around for any weapons and ready to defend the ship.

But stops in his tracks as soon as he sees the deck.

There are no intruders on the ship. Instead, there are thick ropes going from the handrails of the Goddess to the other ship on the right of her. The other ship looks luxurious, there are some people in heavy robes glistening with colorful gems and Tim can see half of the main crew abroad it. The passengers of the luxurious ship are running from the Goddess’s crew.

“Wait,” Tim says aloud to no one in particular. “ _We_ are the pirates.”

 _Sorry_ , he hears in his head and turns to see Bo. Bo’s not saying anything with his mouth - it’s the first time he has communicated to Tim this way, not using the telepathic speech before as a way of respecting Tim’s privacy.

Tim doesn’t have much time to marvel about it, because the next moment Bo brings one of his hands on his head, hitting him swiftly and heavily.

Tim blacks out.

**Author's Note:**

> [title from ](https://unluckyloki.tumblr.com/post/180405548493/it-was-in-that-first-drop-of) (tw for flashing gif!!)
> 
> guys, if it's not much trouble, I would really appreciate some feedback on this series, 'cause I've been let down by life in general lately 😅  
> pls leave a comment and tell me if it's been ok so far!
> 
> [ my tmblr](http://unluckyloki.tumblr.com/)


End file.
